Readers will be exposed to a model that emphasizes resolution--a transformation in the relationship to one's self, replacing shame, self-loathing, and assumptions of guilt with compassionate acceptance. Its unique interventions have been adapted from a number of cutting-edge therapeutic approaches, including Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, mindfulness-based therapies, and clinical hypnosis. Readers will close the pages of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors with a solid grasp of therapeutic approaches to traumatic attachment, working with undiagnosed dissociative symptoms and disorders, integrating right brain-to-right brain treatment methods, and much more. Most of all, they will come away with tools for helping clients create an internal sense of safety and compassionate connection to even their most dis-owned selves.

    Christine Courtois has simplified her extensive and, until now, quite scholarly work geared toward understanding and developing the concept of "complex trauma," and the assessment and treatment thereof. A universally acknowledged leader in this emerging psychotherapeutic field, Dr. Courtois provides here an abbreviated and easy-to-read explanation of what complex trauma is, how it develops, the ways in which it manifests, and how it can effectively be dealt with. The book opens with an explanation of trauma in general-providing historical perspective, examining the various types of traumatic experience, and looking in-depth at the chronic, repetitive, and layered forms of trauma that often build upon and reinforce one another to create complex trauma. Next Dr. Courtois discusses trauma-driven emotional turmoil, and trauma's effects on memory, self-image, relationships, and even physical wellbeing. She then provides readers with a basic understanding of the ways in which complex trauma is diagnosed and assessed, with an explanation of all common trauma-related diagnoses-including stress disorders (such as PTSD), dissociative reactions and disorders, and frequently co-occurring issues (addictions, self-injury, sleep disorders, etc.) In the book's final section, Dr. Courtois presents rudimentary information about the ways in which complex trauma and related issues can effectively be treated, including brief explanations of all psychotherapeutic methods that might be used. Importantly, she discusses in detail the sequenced, three-stage treatment model she has developed for work with addicted survivors of complex trauma, recognizing that complex trauma and addictions are often interrelated in powerful ways, and unless both issues are addressed simultaneously, the client may not heal from either. Though It's Not You, It's What Happened to You is written for people new to the concept of complex trauma and how it may be affecting them or a loved one, clinicians will also find the work useful, relying on it as a way to bolster their own knowledge and, perhaps more importantly, as a tool for informing their traumatized clients about the degree and nature of the psychotherapeutic work to come.

    Levine draws on his broad experience as a clinician, a student of comparative brain research, a stress scientist and a keen observer of the naturalistic animal world to explain the nature and transformation of trauma in the body, brain and psyche. In an Unspoken Voice is based on the idea that trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder, but rather an injury caused by fright, helplessness and loss that can be healed by engaging our innate capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions. Enriched with a coherent theoretical framework and compelling case examples, the book elegantly blends the latest findings in biology, neuroscience and body-oriented psychotherapy to show that when we bring together animal instinct and reason, we can become more whole human beings.

    But little has been written or researched about the potential to heal these attachment wounds and address the damage sustained from neglect or poor parenting in early childhood. This book presents a therapy that focuses on precisely these areas. Laurel Parnell, leader and innovator in the field of eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), offers us a way to embrace two often separate worlds of knowing: the science of early attachment relationships and the practice of healing within an EMDR framework. This beautifully written and clinically practical book combines attachment theory, one of the most dynamic theoretical areas in psychotherapy today, with EMDR to teach therapists a new way of healing clients with relational trauma and attachment deficits.Readers will find science-based ideas about how our early relationships shape the way the mind and brain develop from our young years into our adult lives. Our connections with caregivers induce neural circuit firings that persist throughout our lives, shaping how we think, feel, remember, and behave. When we are lucky enough to have secure attachment experiences in which we feel seen, safe, soothed, and secure—the “four S’s of attachment” that serve as the foundation for a healthy mind—these relational experiences stimulate the neuronal activation and growth of the integrative fibers of the brain.EMDR is a powerful tool for catalyzing integration in an individual across several domains, including memory, narrative, state, and vertical and bilateral integration. In Laurel Parnell’s attachment-based modifications of the EMDR approach, the structural foundations of this integrative framework are adapted to further catalyze integration for individuals who have experienced non-secure attachment and developmental trauma.The book is divided into four parts. Part I lays the groundwork and outlines the five basic principles that guide and define the work. Part II provides information about attachment-repair resources available to clinicians. This section can be used by therapists who are not trained in EMDR. Part III teaches therapists how to use EMDR specifically with an attachment-repair orientation, including client preparation, target development, modifications of the standard EMDR protocol, desensitization, and using interweaves. Case material is used throughout. Part IV includes the presentation of three cases from different EMDR therapists who used attachment-focused EMDR with their clients. These cases illustrate what was discussed in the previous chapters and allow the reader to observe the theoretical concepts put into clinical practice—giving the history and background of the clients, actual EMDR sessions, attachment-repair interventions within these sessions and the rationale for them, and information about the effects of the interventions and the course of treatment.

    They track the clients' associations, fantasies, and signs of psychic conflict, distress, and defenses. Yet while the majority of therapists are trained to notice the appearance and even the movements of the client's body, thoughtful engagement with the client's embodied experience has remained peripheral to traditional therapeutic interventions. Trauma and the Body is a detailed review of research in neuroscience, trauma, dissociation, and attachment theory that points to the need for an integrative mind-body approach to trauma. The premise of this book is that, by adding body-oriented interventions to their repertoire, traditionally trained therapists can increase the depth and efficacy of their clinical work. Sensorimotor psychotherapy is an approach that builds on traditional psychotherapeutic understanding but includes the body as central in the therapeutic field of awareness, using observational skills, theories, and interventions not usually practiced in psychodynamic psychotherapy. By synthesizing bottom-up and top down interventions, the authors combine the best of both worlds to help chronically traumatized clients find resolution and meaning in their lives and develop a new, somatically integrated sense of self.Topics addressed include: Cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor dimensions of information processing • modulating arousal • dyadic regulation and the body • the orienting response • defensive subsystems • adaptation and action systems • treatment principles • skills for working with the body in present time • developing somatic resources for stabilization • processing

    "Rebuilding Shattered Lives" presents valuable insights into the rebuilding of adult psyches shattered in childhood, drawing on the author's extensive research and clinical experience specializing in treating survivors of severe abuse.The new edition includes:- Developments in the treatment of complex PTSD- More on neurobiology, crisis management, and psychopharmacology for trauma-related disorders- Examination of early attachment relationships and their impact on overall development- The impact of disorganized attachment on a child's vulnerability to various forms of victimization- An update on the management of special issuesThis is an essential guide for every therapist working with clients who have suffered severe trauma.

    In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.

    Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited—that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood.   As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn’t Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

    Natalie Rogers has developed a process called the Creative Connection RM that interweaves all the expressive arts -- movement, sound, drawing, painting, writing, and guided imagery -- to tap into the deep wellspring of creativity within each of us. The aim is to reclaim ourselves and then help others reclaim themselves as actively playful, spirited, and conscious individuals. Rogers emphasizes the importance of psychological safety and freedom while using the creative arts. This reflects her extensive work with her father, Carl Rogers, and a deep belief in his person-centered approach to counseling.Photos and art help demystify this process, and various exercises range from the simple to the complex. Natalie's practical suggestions aid counselors who want to add expressive arts to their regular sessions.

    Though untrue, such beliefs can feel extremely real and frightening. Difficult as it may be, facing one’s PTSD from unresolved childhood trauma is a brave, courageous act—and with the right guidance, healing from PTSD is possible. Clinical psychologist Dr. Arielle Schwartz has spent years helping those with C-PTSD find their way to wholeness. She also knows the territory of the healing firsthand, having walked it herself. This book provides a map to the complicated, and often overwhelming, terrain of C-PTSD with Dr. Schwartz’s knowledgeable guidance helping you find your way. In The Complex PTSD Workbook, you’ll learn all about C-PTSD and gain valuable insight into the types of symptoms associated with unresolved childhood trauma, while applying a strength-based perspective to integrate positive beliefs and behaviors. Useful features of The Complex PTSD Workbook include: Examples and exercises through which you’ll discover your own instances of trauma through relating to PTSD experiences other than your own, such as the following: [Example] Diane was very skilled at avoiding dealing with her traumatic past. To survive, she had learned to bury her painful feelings and memories, preferring not to talk about her childhood. It simply hurt too much. [Exercise] In what ways can you relate to Diane’s story? Take some time to write down any associations you have. Information about common PTSD misdiagnoses such as bipolar disorder, ADHD, anxiety disorders, major depressive disorder, and substance abuse, among others. Explorations of common methods of PTSD therapy including somatic therapy, EMDR, CBT, DBT, and mind-body perspectives. Chapter takeaways that encourage thoughtful consideration and writing to explore how you feel as you review the material presented in relation to your PTSD symptoms. The Complex PTSD Workbook aims to empower you with a thorough understanding of the psychology and physiology of C-PTSD so you can make informed choices about the path to healing that is right for you and discover a life of wellness, free of C-PTSD, that used to seem just out of reach.

    Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.Weaving together personal experience with professional knowledge, the authors provide clear explanations, practical suggestions, and support throughout the healing process. Readers will feel recognized and encouraged by hundreds of moving first-person stories drawn from interviews and the authors' extensive work with survivors, both nationally and internationally.This completely revised and updated 20th anniversary edition continues to provide the compassionate wisdom the book has been famous for, as well as many new features:Contemporary research on trauma and the brainAn overview of powerful new healing tools such as imagery, meditation, and body-centered practicesAdditional stories that reflect an even greater diversity of survivor experiencesThe reassuring accounts of survivors who have been healing for more than twenty yearsThe most comprehensive, up-to-date resource guide in the fieldInsights from the authors' decades of experienceCherished by survivors, and recommended by therapists and institutions everywhere, The Courage to Heal has often been called the bible of healing from child sexual abuse. This new edition will continue to serve as the healing beacon it has always been.

    These five core capacities are associated with biologically based core needs that are essential to our physical and emotional well-being: the needs for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love-sexuality. Recognizing these needs as well as five Adaptive Survival Styles set in motion when the core needs are not met early in life, authors Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre cut through the seeming complexity of life’s problems.   Explaining that an impaired capacity for connection to self and to others and the ensuing diminished aliveness are the hidden dimensions that underlie most psychological and many physiological problems, they introduce the NeuroAffective Relational Model® (NARM), a resource-oriented, psychodynamically informed approach that, while not ignoring a person’s past, emphasizes working in the present moment. NARM uses somatic mindfulness to re-regulate the nervous system and to resolve identity distortions—such as low self-esteem, shame, and chronic self-judgment—caused by developmental and relational trauma. Heller and LaPierre demonstrate how this therapy helps clients establish connection to the parts of self that are organized, coherent and functional, integrating the role of connection on all levels of experience as it affects a person's physiology, psychology, and capacity for relationship.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb.... Without this 'gift' offered us by nature, we would not have survived." But merely surviving is not enough. The Drama of the Gifted Child helps us to reclaim our life by discovering our own crucial needs and our own truth.

    Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children. Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.

    I also wrote it from the viewpoint of someone who has discovered many silver linings in the long, windy, bumpy road of recovering from Cptsd. I felt encouraged to write this book because of thousands of e-mail responses to the articles on my website that repeatedly expressed gratitude for the helpfulness of my work. An often echoed comment sounded like this: At last someone gets it. I can see now that I am not bad, defective or crazy…or alone! The causes of Cptsd range from severe neglect to monstrous abuse. Many survivors grow up in houses that are not homes – in families that are as loveless as orphanages and sometimes as dangerous. If you felt unwanted, unliked, rejected, hated and/or despised for a lengthy portion of your childhood, trauma may be deeply engrained in your mind, soul and body. This book is a practical, user-friendly self-help guide to recovering from the lingering effects of childhood trauma, and to achieving a rich and fulfilling life. It is copiously illustrated with examples of my own and my clients’ journeys of recovering. This book is also for those who do not have Cptsd but want to understand and help a loved one who does. This book also contains an overview of the tasks of recovering and a great many practical tools and techniques for recovering from childhood trauma. It extensively elaborates on all the recovery concepts explained on my website, and many more. However, unlike the articles on my website, it is oriented toward the layperson. As such, much of the psychological jargon and dense concentration of concepts in the website articles has been replaced with expanded and easier to follow explanations. Moreover, many principles that were only sketched out in the articles are explained in much greater detail. A great deal of new material is also explored. Key concepts of the book include managing emotional flashbacks, understanding the four different types of trauma survivors, differentiating the outer critic from the inner critic, healing the abandonment depression that come from emotional abandonment and self-abandonment, self-reparenting and reparenting by committee, and deconstructing the hierarchy of self-injuring responses that childhood trauma forces survivors to adopt. The book also functions as a map to help you understand the somewhat linear progression of recovery, to help you identify what you have already accomplished, and to help you figure out what is best to work on and prioritize now. This in turn also serves to help you identify the signs of your recovery and to develop reasonable expectations about the rate of your recovery. I hope this map will guide you to heal in a way that helps you to become an unflinching source of kindness and self-compassion for yourself, and that out of that journey you will find at least one other human being who will reciprocally love you well enough in that way.